]]>http://www.equip.org/broadcast/hank-hanegraaff-with-special-guest-dr-michael-ross/feed/0400 Years of the King James Biblehttp://www.equip.org/video/400-years-of-the-king-james-bible/
http://www.equip.org/video/400-years-of-the-king-james-bible/#commentsFri, 08 Apr 2011 15:59:15 +0000http://simonwebdesign.com/cri/beta/video/400-years-of-the-king-james-bible/It has been 400 years since the King James Bible was first translated in 1611. Hank Hanegraaff, host of the Bible Answer Man broadcast discusses the early translation of the Bible and how important it is that we as Christians get into our Bibles and get the Word of God into us. www.equip.org http

]]>http://www.equip.org/video/400-years-of-the-king-james-bible/feed/0The Message Biblehttp://www.equip.org/article/the-message-bible/
http://www.equip.org/article/the-message-bible/#commentsTue, 07 Apr 2009 13:51:00 +0000http://simonwebdesign.com/cri/beta/book-reviews/the-message-bible/This review first appeared in the Christian Research Journal, volume17, number1 (1994). For further information or to subscribe to the Christian Research Journal go to: http://www.equip.org

As of 1992 the Bible had been translated into 329 languages, the New Testament into an additional 758 tongues. In English alone, there are more than 60 Bible versions and New Testament translations in print—not counting thousands of different formats and bindings. Yet new versions continue to appear every year, the latest being Eugene Peterson’s The Message (NavPress), which already has sold more than 110,000 copies. Its wide distribution and extravagant endorsements identify it as a version to reckon with, and to examine carefully.

The Message Bible- APPROACHES TO BIBLE TRANSLATION

Before commenting on the specifics of The Message, it would be helpful to survey various approaches to the style and substance of Bible translation as seen in the best-selling modern versions. More detailed discussion and critiques of English versions are available in So Many Versions? by Sakae Kubo and WalterF.Specht (Zondervan, 1983) and The English Bible from KJV to NIV by Jack P. Lewis (Baker, 1991).

As to style, some feel a Bible should be translated word for word, as is attempted in the New American Standard Bible (NASB). Others believe no accuracy is lost in a less rigid, more idiomatic translation such as the New International Version (NIV). (The King James Version [KJV] and New Revised Standard Version [NRSV] stand somewhere between the NASB and NIV.) Still others think translation remains faithful in a free and idiomatic rendering such as Today’s English Version (TEV) or J.B.Phillips’s New Testament in Modern English. The Message definitely falls in this latter category, but is freer and more expansive than either Phillips or the TEV.

Word-for-word translation is a practical impossibility. This is because no two languages use words and grammar in exactly the same way. Even the simple sentence “God is love” from 1 John 4:16, identical in most English versions, is not a word-for-word rendering: the Greek reads, “The God love is.” That may be good Greek, but it is not good English. Recognizing this reality, the NRSV translators followed the maxim, “As literal as possible, as free as necessary.” The working maxim of The Message appears to be “As free as possible; literal only when necessary.”

As to substance, most of the best-selling Bibles use a traditional, ecclesiastical vocabulary in addition to generic English terms. Some simple-English versions, such as the International Children’s Bible (ICB), use traditional terms like “blasphemy,” “gospel,” and “tabernacle,” but have a dictionary to introduce readers to these technical and theological terms. Other basic translations attempt to avoid words that are not in everyday English, using footnotes to explain concepts like “righteousness” and “repentance,” as is the case with the Contemporary English Version (CEV). Still other versions build their explanations and interpretations into the text itself, as do The Living Bible (LB) and The Message. This latter approach is popularly called “paraphrase,” although the expansive comments of these versions often go way beyond the requirements of simple restatement.

Of course, all translation involves interpretation. Even when translating word for word, one must decide what a word means in a specific context. The English word “trunk,” for example, can be the front end of an elephant, the back end of a car, the bottom of a tree, the middle of a person, or the entirety of a suitcase. Recognizing that words can have a wide range of meaning, translators must take great care not to overload a word or passage, especially with theological interpretation. The most criticized word choice in the NIV is the rendering of the Greek word sarx as “sinful nature” (25 times, including Romans7:5,18,25), a rendering incompatible with several denominational perspectives. Many wish the NIV had stuck with the traditional and theologically neutral “flesh,” and offered “sinful nature” in its footnotes instead of the other way around.

Interpretation often adds to the text. The KJV renders John1:17, “For the law was given by Moses, but grace and truth came by Jesus Christ.” By inserting the word “but,” which is not in the Greek, the translators force the reader to see a contrast between law and grace and between Moses and Jesus, whereas John may have intended to show a continuity. Nowhere is this assumed contrast more evident than in the expansive paraphrase of the LB, “For Moses gave us only the Law with its rigid demands and merciless justice, while Jesus Christ brought us loving forgiveness as well.” The italicized words come not from the Greek but from the theology of the paraphraser, KennethN.Taylor.

The major problem with this kind of paraphrase, which also characterizes The Message, is that the reader does not know where the text ends and the commentary begins. The LB does note in its preface, “There are dangers in paraphrases…a possibility that the translator, however honest, may be giving the English reader something that the original writer did not mean to say.” No such cautions are offered in the introduction to or advertisements for The Message. Nor in the work itself is it ever called a paraphrase. Rather, the translator’s ability in Greek is lauded as “a second mother tongue” and his translation applauded as “accurate” and “authentic” to the degree that one widely used commendation states, “If the New Testament were written today, this is what it would sound like.”

The Message Bible- SPECIFIC CHARACTERISTICS OF THE MESSAGE

Translation Style. As already noted, The Message is a very free rendering of the Greek. The text has chapter numbers, but no verses. This is not explained, but verse numbers are probably omitted to make the text look more like normal English literature, and because the translation often combines and transposes verses in a way that would be difficult or impossible to represent (as in 1Cor.11:1-16, pp.354‑55).

Sometimes the translation is straightforward in its simplicity. Nothing is added to the genealogies of Matthew and Luke. The institution of the Lord’s Supper in Luke22:17-20 is clear and concise. Narrative texts in the Gospels and Acts tend to be conservatively rendered.

Some paraphrastic renderings help to clarify words and grammar in a way many would agree reflects well the intention of the original. Take, for example, the classic John3:16 (KJV): “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.” The Message reads (p.190): “This is how much God loved the world: He gave his Son, his one and only Son. And this is why: so that no one need be destroyed; by believing in him, anyone can have a whole and lasting life.” While some scholars would prefer “This is the way God loved the world,” or might ask for a stronger result statement than “whole and lasting life,” this is a good paraphrase in contemporary English.

Peterson himself characterizes the language of The Message as “current and fresh and understandable in the same language in which we do our shopping, talk with our friends, worry about world affairs, and teach our children their table manners” (p.7). But it is often self-consciously literary and idiosyncratic. For example, after explaining the significance of the verb “fulfill” in the introduction to Matthew’s gospel (p. 8), Peterson chooses not to use “fulfill” to translate the word’s first occurrence in Matthew 1:22 (p. 10). Instead, he renders the text, “This would bring the prophet’s embryonic sermon to full term.” Such is hardly “the language of the street.” Many traditional and theological words, such as “repent(ance)” and “righteous(ness),” are avoided, while similar terms like “baptize,” “blasphemy,” and “covenant” are retained. In the place of some traditional terms are the author’s own coined vocabulary, often hyphenated composite terms such as “God-Expression,” “God-news,” “God-pointing,” “good-hearts,” “Life-Light,” and “Priest-Friend.” I am not certain that such terms are any more contemporary or require less explanation than the traditional vocabulary they replace.

The Message Bible- Expansive Paraphrase

The Message regularly adds significantly to the text. Joseph is characterized as a “righteous” or “just” man in most English versions of Matthew1:19. The Message has him “chagrined but noble” (p.10), half of which is presumed by the translator rather than stated in the text. In Luke3:7 (p.122), the crowds are said to be coming for baptism “because it was the popular thing to do” (compare Matt.3:7, p.13). “You are the salt of the earth” (Matt.5:13, NRSV) becomes “Let me tell you why you are here. You’re here to be salt-seasoning that brings out the God-flavors of this earth” (p.16). Paul’s simple question in Acts19:2 (NIV), “Did you receive the Holy Spirit when you believed?” is expanded to “Did you receive the Holy Spirit when you believed? Did you take God into your mind only, or did you also embrace him with your heart? Did he get inside you?” (p.280). Again, readers have no clue when the text ends and the commentary begins.

The Message Bible- Anachronisms and Transcultural Renderings.The Message sometimes retains terminology that reflects ancient biblical culture, while at other times it uses terms that reflect modern culture. The Prodigal Son wears “sandals” (Luke15:22, p.159), but Peter wears “shoes” (Acts12:8, p.263). Jesus reads the “scroll” of Isaiah (Luke4:17, p.125), but Paul reads “books” (2Tim.4:13, p.450). Upon seeing “loan sharks” and people selling cattle in the temple, Jesus exclaims, “Stop turning my Father’s house into a shopping mall!” (John2:16, p.188). The parable of the mustard seed becomes the parable of the “pine nut” (Luke13:19, p.154), but faith needs to be the size of a “poppy seed” (Luke17:6, p.162). A servant must wait to eat until his master finishes his “coffee” (Luke17:8, p.162). In Luke20:46 (p.171), Jesus warns against “religion scholars” who wear “academic gowns” and “sit at the head table at every church function”—renderings that cross both cultural and religious lines.

The Message Bible- Interpretive Patterns. It is the translator’s duty to resist the temptation to overload the text with theological interpretation or to make vague what is concrete in the text. The Original New Testament, translated by Jewish scholar Hugh Schonfield, has extreme examples of such tendencies. He obscures the concept of the Virgin Birth by referring to Mary as a “maiden” in Luke1:27 and as “unwed” in1:34, and he totally omits it from Matthew by failing to translate1:22-23!

Thankfully, The Message is not so extreme. Peterson enjoys an impeccable reputation as an orthodox evangelical. He believes he has not imposed himself upon the text. In an interview with Publisher’s Weekly (February14,1994, pp.49-50), Peterson says “the work wasn’t really mine…I felt as if I was a servant to the text for two years, and I was compelled to obey.” It should be noted, however, that not all of his paraphrase follows the mainstream of biblical interpretation.

Some texts exclude or demand specific theological orientation. “Grow up” for the traditional “Be perfect” in Matthew5:48 (p.19) excludes the holiness/perfectionist perspective. Acts 22:16 is translated in such a way as would please baptismal regenerationists (p.289), but not so in 1Peter3:21 (pp.491-92). The subhead “Prayer Language” for 1Corinthians14 and the consistent reference to “praying in a private ‘prayer language'” throughout the chapter reflects modern charismatic theology and practice. The office(s) of bishop/elder/overseer are usually generalized to “leader,” as in 1Timothy3:1-2,5:17,19 (pp.441, 443), and Titus1:5-6 (p.451); deacon is often rendered “servant” as in 1Timothy3:8 (p.441). These renderings would not fit all perspectives on church government. The Arminian understanding of loss of salvation could not easily be seen in James5:19-20 (p.485) or 1John5:16 (p.508).

The Greek word kurios is usually rendered “Lord” in English versions; it reflects both the proper name of God Yahweh (LORD) and the positional title Adonay (Lord) from the Old Testament. Some biblical scholars avoid “Lord” as a male-oriented, sexist term. The Message rarely uses “Lord,” preferring to call Jesus “the Master” (John20:20) and to translate OT references to Yahweh as “God” (Matt.3:3, p.13; but note Matt.4:7,10, p.14). This limits the interpretation of passages that might refer to Jesus as both Yahweh and Adonay — as God and as Sovereign — such as Romans10:9-13 (p.323, compare Joel2:32) and Philippians2:11 (p.414, compare Isaiah45:18-25).

The Message also fails to consistently handle role relations between men and women. Some passages that address husband-wife role relations use the word “submit,” such as Ephesians5:22-24 (p.409) and Colossians3:18 (p.426) (although they seem to qualify submission to certain situations). Other texts have been rendered in such a way that the traditional, hierarchical interpretation is no longer possible, especially 1Peter3:1-7 (p.490), where women are simply admonished to “be good wives.” The first paragraph on page 355 (1Corinthians11) begins, “Don’t, by the way, read too much into the differences here between men and women,” a statement which has no clear textual base. These may be defensible interpretations, but they disallow other understandings.

Texts traditionally understood as condemning homosexual conduct — 1Corinthians6:9 (p.345) and 1Timothy1:10 (p.439) — are generalized to “sex abuse” (see CHRISTIAN RESEARCH JOURNAL, Winter1993, pp.8-15). Romans1:27, rendered “Sexually confused, they abused and defiled one another, women with women, men with men — all lust, no love” (p.305), leaves room for the allowance of loving homosexual relationships.

The Message Bible- MEASURING THE MESSAGE

So how are we to view The Message? It is an expansive paraphrase that is not so labeled, as is The Living Bible. Beset with inconsistencies, its idiom is not always “street language”; its terminology is often idiosyncratic to its author. Compared by noted literary figures to the groundbreaking translation of J.B.Phillips, I believe The Message often lacks Phillips’s creativity and conciseness.

In the introduction, Eugene Peterson compares his pastoral ministry to his work as a translator: “I stood at the border between two languages, biblical Greek and everyday English, acting as a translator, providing the right phrases, getting the right words so that the men and women to whom I was pastor could find their way around and get along in this world” (p.7). Much of The Message reads like a sermon: text plus interpretation and application. Unlike a sermon, however, the reader does not know where the text ends and the sermon begins.

Because of its interpretive and idiosyncratic nature, The Message should not be used for study. If read for enlightenment or entertainment, the reader should follow the advice of Saint Augustine, as quoted in the original preface to the KJV, “Variety of translations is profitable for finding out the sense of the Scriptures.” Acts17:11 commends the Bereans for evaluating Paul’s teaching with the Old Testament Scriptures. In the same spirit, The Message needs to be evaluated against more consistent and traditional translations, especially when its renderings evoke a response such as, “I didn’t know the Bible said that!” or, “Now I understand what it means.”

In sum: while the phrase “the Message” is Eugene Peterson’s translation of “the Gospel,” not everything in The Message should be treated as gospel.

]]>http://www.equip.org/article/the-message-bible/feed/0A Summary Critique: New Age Bible Versionshttp://www.equip.org/article/a-summary-critique-new-age-bible-versions/
http://www.equip.org/article/a-summary-critique-new-age-bible-versions/#commentsMon, 06 Apr 2009 19:06:00 +0000http://simonwebdesign.com/cri/beta/book-reviews/a-summary-critique-new-age-bible-versions/Another book against modern versions of the Bible has entered the marketplace. Like previous works by King James Version (KJV)-only advocates, it argues for the KJV and/or majority text-type as being truer to the original manuscripts than the modern critical Greek texts and their underlying textual traditions. It goes beyond previous works, however, by developing a conspiracy theory for the KJV-only view. Author G. A. Riplinger believes that lying behind modern versions (especially the NASB and NIV, apparently) is New Age influence.

Until the late 19th century, the texts used by scholars generally were built on a manuscript tradition begun in the seventh century of the Christian era (though I would concede that some readings found in this tradition date back before the fourth century). With the discovery of older Greek manuscripts, and other New Testament manuscripts, critical texts began to be built on manuscripts developed in the fourth and fifth centuries — in addition to a number of ancient papyri, some of which date into the second century. Riplinger rejects these earlier manuscripts and urges us to return to the Bible of the precritical era.

If there is anything good to say about Riplinger’s New Age Bible Versions (hereafter NABV), it is that the book is not any longer than it is and that the foolishness of its various claims are transparent when one takes the time to study them. Unfortunately, NABV has received considerable praise from many popular authors who either did not really take the time to evaluate the book or apparently share Riplinger’s ignorance of the issues of tex­tual criticism and translation.

NABV is replete with logical, philosophical, theological, biblical, and technical errors. Riplinger lacks the proper training to write this book (her MA. and M.F.A. in “Home Economics” notwithstanding). Many of her errors arise from a lack of understanding of Old and New Testament textual criticism as well as biblical and theological studies. In a two-hour debate I had with her, I found her very able to articulate her position, but she repeatedly mispronounced terms used by biblical scholars and did not seem to understand the development of the textual tradition from the Byzantine/“majority” manuscripts to the Erasmian text used by the translators of the KJV. Moreover, I had to ask her four times before she hesitatingly admitted that she really could not read Greek.

A seminary degree is not required to understand the matters of Bible transmission and translation. But one must learn the history and methodology of textual transcription and transmission, and gain a good grasp of the Hebrew and Greek languages, before one “pontificates” on the subject as Riplinger has done. Simply comparing the KJV with the NIV and NASB through endless charts does not prove a thing. She needs to demonstrate that the specific translations she accepts are really better textual renditions than the alternatives she rejects, rather than merely assuming the superiority of the majority text type or the KJV.

I have no personal interest in defending the NIV or NASB. I prefer to use the NKJV (New King James Version), though I adopt a more eclectic view of textual criticism than its translators, who hold to the majority text theory.

In order to do justice to a review of NABV in such short space, I will categorize the types of errors Riplinger makes throughout her work and then provide an illustration of each.

New Age Bible Versions- THE APPEAL TO DIVINE AUTHORITY

Riplinger commits a logical fallacy commonly employed by those whose arguments are weak: an appeal to authority. In a newsletter, she explains her reason for writing the book and claims some sense of divine inspiration for her work: “Daily, during the six years needed for this investigation, the Lord miraculously brought the needed materials and resources — much like the ravens fed Elijah. Each discovery was not the result of effort on my part, but of the direct hand of God — so much so that I hesitated to even put my name on the book. Consequently, I used G. A. Riplinger, which signifies to me, God and Riplinger — God as author and Riplinger as secretary.”1

Certainly we should not credit God with being a participant in the writing of NABV unless we are prepared to affirm that God commits the kind of errors manifestly obvious in her book. This I am unwilling to do.

Another example of this approach may be found in a debate between Riplinger and James White, where, upon being challenged on her acrostic algebra, she claimed it was given to her by God.2 Note her method, which involves deleting the common letters of NASV and NIV, and then deleting the letters A and V from what is left:

Step l: (NASV – NIV) – AV = X

Step 2: (NASV – NIV) – AV = X

Step 3: (ASI + NV) – AV = X

Step 4: ASI + NV – AV = X

Step 5: SIN = X

The success of this arbitrary method of determining truth depends on using NASV rather than NASB (the customary designation for the New American Standard Bible), and using AV rather than KJV (the customary designation for the King James Version). When asked about this alternation, Riplinger said God calls the NASB the NASV.

One may construct a similar “acrostic” to Riplinger’s but have far different results: Rather than using two versions, however, let us use seven (the perfect number of God); Cunard’s Authorized (CA), King James II (KJ2), Hayman’s Epistles (HE), Revised English Bible (REB), New International Version (NIV), New American Standard Bible (NASB), and Barclay’s New Testament (BNT). In omitting all the letters in common one is left with CKJHRIVST-KJV, and thus CHRIST. Using Riplinger’ s logic these versions must be from God.3

New Age Bible Versions- MISUNDERSTANDING BASIC THEOLOGICAL DEBATE

A major error Riplinger makes is impugning the theological integrity of evangelical scholars by identifying their thinking with New Age ideology. She does this without realizing, apparently, that the views she criticizes are representative of theological positions held by Christian theologians and laypeople for much of the history of the church.

Riplinger, for example, charges Edwin Palmer, executive-secretary of the NIV committee, with denying that the Holy Spirit participated in the conception (begetting) of Jesus, seeking to equate his views with Mormon theology (p. 344). The context of Palmer’s statement, “The Holy Spirit did not beget the Son,” however, indicates that he was speaking of the eternal begetting of the Son from the Father within the Trinity, not the physical conception of the Second Person as the man Jesus.4 Her quote from Brigham Young, however, speaks of the physical conception of Jesus through Mary.5 This is careless scholarship or confused theology at best, but it may be outright deception on her part to prove her ill-founded theory about the supposed heresies of the NIV.

When Palmer does speak of the conception of Jesus Christ, he clearly indicates that the Holy Spirit was personally involved:

The Holy Spirit was needed at the very start of Jesus’ human life, at his incarnation. By the word incarnation we mean that act by which the second Person of the Trinity, remaining God, ‘became flesh and lived for a while among us’ (John 1:14). This act was effected by the Holy Spirit, as is seen by both Matthew’s statement that Mary ‘was found to be with child through the Holy Spirit’ (1:18), and the angel’s announcement to Mary that the ‘Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you’ (Luke 1:35). The Holy Spirit is the cause of the conception of Jesus. He is the one, and not the Father nor the Son, let alone Joseph, who planted the seed of life in a mysterious way in Mary’s womb.6

New Age Bible Versions- QUOTING INDIVIDUALS OUT OF CONTEXT

Riplinger incessantly quotes people out of context. Certainly any of us might on occasion take a portion from someone’s writing and use it improperly. Riplinger, however, does this repeatedly, page after page. Often these quotations appear to be not simply an oversight but a deliberate attempt to characterize her opponents improperly. Moreover, some of the quotes are constructed with isolated comments from an author separated by several paragraphs or pages — sometimes out of order. This procedure would allow one to make a person say anything he or she wanted that person to say (see, e.g., her quote of Philip Comfort, Early Manuscripts and Modern Translations of the New Testament, pp. xvii and 8 in NABV, p. 530).

She derisively charges that Edwin Palmer rejects Christ’s deity in the NIV when she quotes him as saying, “[F]ew clear and decisive texts say that Jesus is God” (2). When one looks at Palmer’s entire statement one discovers that she has turned his point on its head. Whereas he indicates that the KJV has obscured a few texts which explicitly state the deity of Christ, either because of its underlying Greek text (John 1:18) or because of its translation (Tit. 2:13; 1 Pet. 1:2),7 she quotes him as though he is attempting to minimize the deity of our Lord.

In another place, Riplinger quotes from Norman Geisler to bolster her view that when modern translations speak of “the Christ” they reflect a New Age perspective. It is hard for this reviewer to believe that she was not duplicitous in this instance. Look at her quote and then the original by Geisler:

“We should be particularly wary when someone refers to Jesus Christ as ‘the Christ…’” (NABV, p.318)

“We should be particalarly wary when someone refers to Jesus Christ as ‘the Christ spirit’ or ‘Christ-consciousness.’ Generally, when New Agers (and many liberal Christians) speak of Christ, they are not referring to the historical Jesus spoken of in the New Testament and the great Christian creeds. If they do speak of the historical Jesus, they usually refer to Him as only one of several Christ figures in human history.”8

New Age Bible Versions- READING NEW AGE MEANINGS INTO LEGITIMATE TRANSLATIONS

Riplinger oftentimes reads too much into specific choices modern translators have made in translating Greek terms. For example, as one can surmise from the above, she sees New Age influence when modern translations use the term “the Christ” rather than “Jesus Christ” or “Christ Jesus”: “Real references to Jesus as ‘the Christ’ are rare: however, new versions literally paint their pages with this pawn” (318).

Most Bible students understand that the word Christ is a term from a Greek word meaning “anointed one,” which in turn translates a Hebrew word that is transliterated Messiah. To call Jesus “the Messiah” or “the Christ” in no way by itself implies New Age ideas. Only when New Agers invest a nonbiblical meaning into the use of that phrase should there be concern. As a matter of fact, “the Christ” is actually found 19 times in the KJV and ho christos (Greek for “the Christ”) is found 59 times in the 1551 Textus Receptus (so-called). On the other hand, ho chrisros is used 49 times in the Nestle-Aland (26th ed.) text, and “the Christ” is found 48 times in the NIV. When one adds to this the instances of ho christosin its other case forms, the total number of times in the Greek texts in which “the Christ” appears is:

169 Textus Receptus-Stephanus 1551

166 Majority-Byzantine

146 Nestle-Aland 26th ed.9

If Riplinger is correct in saying that when a text refers to “the Christ” it is teaching New Age doctrine, the KJV is based on manuscripts that are more New Age than are the texts on which modern translations are based. One wonders how Riplinger can make such a claim about the translation of ho christos as “the Christ” when this is done in many important verses in the KJV (see John 1:41; 20:31; 1 John 2:22; 5:1).

New Age Bible Versions- MISUNDERSTANDING TEXTUAL CRITICISM

Riplinger’s understanding of textual criticism appears to be meager. To analyze this aspect of the book would require considerable space. Suffice it to say that when the older manuscripts disagree with particular readings found in the majority text type, they are (to Riplinger) “additions” to the Word of God. When readings found in the majority text are different from the Textus Receptus (orErasmas’s earlier text), they go unmentioned so that the reader will not be confronted with the fact that the majority text on which the Textus Receptus is built also — along with older manuscripts — differs many places with the KJV. Moreover, if the KJV has verses or words not even found in the Textus Receptus, Riplinger fails to indicate this.

The bottom line in Riplinger’s mind is that the King James Version of 1611 is alone the Word of God. Anything prior to or after that specific translation is in some measure not really the Word of God. We are back to the absurd view that the KJV is the Bible of Paul and the apostles.

A volume the size of NABV would be required to point out Riplinger’s misunderstanding of theology, translation technique, and her fascination with New Age conspiracy and its association with modern versions. This book will cause a temporary stir. Hopefully, however, most Christians will recognize NABV as an ill-begotten book and will turn back to a study of the Word of God in the language of the people today. In so doing they will fulfill the prayers of godly translators of centuries past, including the very ones who translated the King James Version of the Bible.

H. Wayne House, author, lecturer, and professor-at-large at Simon Greenleaf University School of Law, holds earned doctorates in theology and law, and a Master’s degree in biblical and patristic Greek.

1The End Times and Victorious Living, a ministry of the Paw Creek Church and Media Ministry, January-February 1994, 15.